SQL issue installing EP 10.1

[jonathan.webb@raytheon.co]

Hi all,

I'm adding Cognos EP into a BI environment (all 10.1). BI is working without issue. The content manager is on SQL 2008.

I've installed the EP server components but when I come to test the Planning Store database, I am getting an error message

[ ERROR ] Connection test to 'dbserver\sql2008' failed.
e7a: Unable to open connection using connection string of Provider=SQLNCLI10;Data Source=dbserver\sql2008;UID=db_admin;PWD=********* and timeout of 15 seconds.

Provider cannot be found. It may not be properly installed.

[ ERROR ] Cognos Configuration is unable to access the Planning Store. Verify your database connection parameters, and then contact your database administrator for assistance.

I haven't installed any specific SQL client / components onto this server - do I need to?

The content store is on the same server / same credentials and works fine.

Thanks in advance for any help that can be offered

[ericlfg]

Hi Jon,

You will need to install the SQL client tools.  Not only for getting the planning store resource to test (see below for a hunch about this),  but in the future if you leverage this machine as planning job server.  There are executables we call from SQL from cognos that are only provided with the client tools.

My hunch is that you are using windows 2k8 servers and these by default have the SQLNCLI (Native Client) installed.  My bet is that your content store is using this, but you have the planning store configured with SQL server 2008.  This is telling cognos configuration to use the SQLNCLI10 provider.  Since you've confirmed that you don't have the client tools installed, this provider is not present and likely why you are getting the error.  If you switched it back to 2k5, I suspect it will work.  You can give this a try to see if I'm correct, but like I said above you will want to install the tools.

Cheers

[jonathan.webb@raytheon.co]

Hi, thanks for this, I've arranged to get the SQL 2008 client installed onto this server (and will also get it installed on our dedicated job server)

My architecture is all Windows 2003 R2 server with a dedicated SQL 2000 server. I've previously had a Cognos 8.4 installation (both BI and EP) with all Cognos databases set up on SQL 2000. Now I'm setting up C10.1, I've copied all of the Cognos content databases and restored them under new names (to get a parallel installation). I've found that SQL 2000 is no longer supported for EP so I'm getting everything switched to SQL 2008 but now I'm getting this issue, which should be resolved as you say by installing the client tools.

I'll post back if it doesn't work :) Cheers for taking the time to help.

[SomeClown]

For Planning, you'll also want to install the SQL 2008 Feature Pack, Backwards Compatibility.  SQL2k8 does not include the SQL-DMO objects by default (deprecated by Msoft), and Planning still uses those.  Don't have the link handy but it googles easily.

[jonathan.webb@raytheon.co]

Brilliant advice - I'd spotted some error messages about SQLDMO but couldn't find that in the SQl 2008 install option list :)

I'm sure that'll save me some pain later on!